


All We Need

by Humanities_Handbag



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Maddie and Tom learning how to be parents, Rated T for language, Rescue Missions, a bunch of scared people learning how to be a family, spare rooms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25679623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanities_Handbag/pseuds/Humanities_Handbag
Summary: Tom and Maddie Wachowski had decided it early on in their marriage; they never wanted or needed to have a child. They were fine alone. They were all they needed, and that was that.And then Tom had taken out the tranq gun....A story about adults afraid of parenthood, children afraid of abandonment, and the small braveries it takes to find one another at the end.
Relationships: Maddie Wachowski/Tom Wachowski
Comments: 35
Kudos: 236





	All We Need

**Author's Note:**

> Tom and Maddie had never wanted children. 
> 
> They’d talked about children, of course. Like anything else, it found its way into conversations. When they watched a movie, while they tried to figure out the crock pot, when they first got Ozzie. It was a natural evolution of marriage, to wonder if things could change and grow. 
> 
> They usually decided that they were fine as they were. 
> 
> "This is fine," They'd say. "This is all I need." 
> 
> (and then Tom had gone and shot a hedgehog with a tranq gun.)

Tom and Maddie had never wanted children. 

They’d _talked_ about children, of course. Like anything else, it found its way into conversations. When they watched a movie, while they tried to figure out the crock pot, when they first got Ozzie. It was a natural evolution of marriage, to wonder if things could change and grow. 

They usually decided that they were fine as they were. 

“I don’t know if I ever wanted a baby,” said Maddie one night, leaning against his shoulder. They’d just moved from their crappy studio apartment off Main Street and into a house. The realtor had made an offhand comment about the spare rooms and _can’t wait to get a family started, huh_? and the words had clung like nettles to their skin as they dragged boxes in through the front door to the middle of the half painted living room. That night, surrounded by boxes and paint cans and beer bottles and the pizza they’d ordered (half mushroom, half onion and sausage), Maddie added the thought to the piles. “I don’t think I ever wanted a baby,” she said, staring down at her plastic plate. “I know it’s probably expected, but-”

“Hey…” He’d reached out with his foot and kicked hers. “I get it.”

“... Are you sure?”

He leaned back against the wall, pressing their sides together. “I married you because I wanted to be with you. Whatever we choose, we do it because we both want it. You know?” He took in a deep breath. “And… to tell you the truth…” A shrug, “I know we’ve talked about it before, but it hasn’t changed. I don’t think I want a kid, either.” 

“Well then…” She dropped her hand, palm up, onto his knee. He took it. “I guess it’s just you and me against the world then, Mr. Wachowski.”

“I guess so, Mrs. Wachowski.” 

Maddie and Tom were good married. Why change what was broken? 

Being good married, though, was always subject to questioning. 

“So,” his aunt asked after a Christmas dinner, cornering Tom between her and the dessert table, “when are you two going to have a family?”

“We _are_ a family,” said Tom. “Me and Maddie are a family.”

“You know what I mean, Thomas.” 

He did. 

Still.

He excused himself politely, caught Maddie’s eyes, and drifted back into the little crowd. 

“I’m still not sure if I want kids,” he said on the ride back to their house. It had snowed earlier, but now the sparkling landscape was little more than gray mush that gurgled when the tires passed through it. “I know they all want us to have kids, but…”

“No,” said Maddie, “I get it.” She shrugged a little, looking out the window. 

He reached across the dash to take her hand. “We have Ozzie. And each other. That’s enough.”

She squeezed back and looked at him. The streetlights flashed across her face. 

“That’s enough,” she agreed, smiling. “This is all I need.” 

.

.

.

And then Tom shot a hedgehog in the leg with a tranq gun. There was a road trip. A scare. Maddie and Tom ended up following along.

* * *

Sonic was a handful. 

They learn that very early on when they’re going down the road together and the hedgehog, sitting in the backseat, is bouncing up and down. And he won’t stop talking. “Pretzel Lady, I can’t believe you’re coming with us!”

She gave Tom a look. He just shrugged, flicking up his turn signal. 

Maddie turned around in the passenger seat. The blue hedgehog was smiling at her, eyes huge and curious. “You can just call me Maddie.”

“Maddie,” he said, beaming. “Okay!” He looked around the car. “Do you want to play something? Tom taught me the quiet game, but that one’s no fun.”

“Because you kept losing,” muttered Tom. 

Maddie tipped her head back and laughed, drawing her feet up against the dashboard. “How about a new game, then? You ever hear of 20 questions?”

She taught him how to play, and when it was his turn he was kind and gave her 43 guesses until she finally got that he was thinking of the _Flash_. 

(Tom never gave away that she let him win). 

“Alright,” said Tom, “my turn to choose a game. Ever play I-Spy?”

“Uh, _duh_. But usually it’s just me against me, so it’s not much fun.”

“Right, well. I won’t go easy on you then. I-Spy with my little eye something _blue_.”

"Donut Lord, you're already _awful_ at this."

"You're stalling! Something blue, kid." 

"It's me, isn't it."

" _Bzzz_. Try again, egomaniac." 

* * *

_They’d never wanted kids._

_Tom’s dad hadn’t always been there, and while Maddie’s had been great, but she’d still needed to watch them go through a horrible divorce, and the feelings had left them a little stung and a little raw._

_“Kids complicate things,” said Maddie, remembering the way her parents had hissed and jibed about custody over her and her sister._

_“They do,” said Tom, remembering the way he’d waited and waited and waited at windows until eventually he’d stopped waiting altogether. “And what if we hurt them.”_

_“I’d hate that,” she’d agreed. “I don’t want to mess up a kid. I’d never want that.”_

_“Never,” said Tom, swinging his arm around her shoulders. “And besides This is all I need.”_

* * *

They stopped at a rest stop fifty miles out. The sun was setting like a stovetop burner against the road. Reds and pinks played through the windshield. The car needed gas and when they finally stopped for some, getting out of the car to stretch their legs, Maddie suggested that she take over driving for a while. Tom sat in the front and played with the radio while she turned back onto the highway, following the straight line towards the mountains. 

Fifteen minutes into the trip, she heard a growl from the backseat.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, watching Sonic hide his stomach. “You hungry?”

“I’m okay.”

She looked at the front console and the time blinking above the GPS. “I think it’s about dinner time. Tom, any places near here?”

“I think there’s a diner nearby?” her husband said, picking up his phone to scroll through some options. 

“I’m okay,” Sonic said, looking between them a little desperately. 

Maddie ignored his apparent need to appease them. “What do you usually eat?”

“Um… whatevers around?” He fiddled with his seatbelt. “Can’t really shop, you know, so…” 

Maddie’s foot dropped a little too hard on the accelerator and her eyes flew up to the mirror again. Beside her, just in hearing range, Tom’s fingers paused on the keypad. Two pairs of eyes were on him. 

“Sweetheart…” said Maddie, slowly. “What does… _whatevers around_ mean?”

“It’s- uh-” his face bloomed hot. “Just wherever. I live in a cave, so-”

“A _cave_.”

“Well…” he gestured down to himself, “I can’t exactly go anywhere.” He forced a smile. “But I’ve got plenty there! Books, beanbag. I’m fine. Really. I’ve got the ropes down.”

Maddie wanted to ask more questions, but he was starting to look more and more like he’d rather sink into the seat, so she swallowed back her questions and looked towards Tom instead, who clicked on something, ducking his eyes away. 

“There’s a diner two miles down the road,” he said, clicking for directions 

She nodded. “Perfect. I don’t know about you, but I could use some pancakes.”

When they finally did make it, night had settled. Tom went in and ordered, and they sat at a picnic table. Maddie on her own on one side, Sonic beside Tom at the other. They split a stack of pancakes with a side of bacon and home fries. Whatever reservations the hedgehog had before were gone the moment they slid him a paper plate, and he tucked in as quick as he could. 

Tom kept reminding Sonic to eat slower ( _it’s not going anywhere, bud!_ ) and Maddie kept handing him napkins ( _you’ll be all syrup at this rate!_ ) and they walked slowly back to the car when they were done. 

Sonic ran ahead, jogging in place at the back door. 

A cool wind brushed evenly through, rustling dirt and sand up around their ankles. 

“I don’t think he’s ever had a meal with anyone,” Maddie mumbled. 

“I don’t think he’s ever seen that much food _ever_.” 

Maddie chewed her lip, nodding, her steps heavy. 

Sonic, from the car, groaned. “You guys coming or _what_?”

“Yeah bud,” Tom called back, reaching down to grab Maddie’s hand and squeeze it hard. “Coming!”

It wasn’t until they were back and buckled in did Sonic seem to remember himself. He kicked the back of the driver’s seat gently until Maddie turned around. His face was flushed pink. “Thanks,” Sonic quietly, eyes darting at anywhere but on her. 

Maddie smiled and reached across the space to wipe syrup off his face with her thumb.

* * *

_They’d never wanted kids._

_Maddie was convinced that she wouldn’t have been a good mom and Tom was pretty sure that he’d have been a below average dad._

_“I work all the time,” she said._

_“Me too.”_

_“And I get animals. I wouldn’t know what to do with a baby!”_

_“Me neither.”_

_“And besides,” she’d said, grabbing his hands. “This is all I need.”_

* * *

They waited until he fell asleep in the back to talk. 

“God,” whispered Maddie, turning left into the passing lane. 

“Yeah,” Tom whispered back, turning in the passenger seat to look at the hedgehog in the back. 

“Tom, he’s been out there in the woods, alone, for _years_.”

“I know.” 

“He’s been- been literally _surviving_ on… on what? On our dumpsters?”

“I _know_ , Maddie.”

She sniffled, wiping her face. When her hand went back to the wheel, it left little wet streaks. “How long do you think he’s been out there alone?”

He covered her hand on the wheel. “We can ask when he wakes up.” Silence. Then; “you sure you want to know?”

“No. But… yes.” 

“Yeah,” said Tom, leaning back in the passenger seat, rubbing his own face. “I do, too.” 

* * *

_They’d never wanted kids._

_They went out to dinner, to shows, to concerts. They took Ozzie for walks. Met up with their friends. Held parties on their back porch around a fire pit. Their friends all talked about their new children. How quick they were growing. Wondered idly out loud if Maddie and Tom were thinking the same thing._

_“No,” said Maddie, ignoring the pinch in her stomach._

_“Naw,” said Tom, doing his best to control the tapping of his fingers. He grabbed Maddie’s hand instead. “This is all we need.”_

* * *

The answer was ten years. He tells them after they’ve gotten closer and the golden gate bridge is in view. Tom had asked it as casually as he could, trying not to spook the kid. “So… when did you get here?”

“Uh…” he kicked his feet out, looking at anywhere but the two adults in the front seats. “When I was three?”

Tom clenched his jaw. Maddie gripped hard at the steering wheel. 

Sonic curled inward. “I’ve been okay,” he promised, quietly. “I have a cave and everything! I can take care of myself.”

“Honey,” said Maddie.

“Bud,” said Tom. 

They didn’t expect the anger. It came quickly, brewing beneath another emotion they'd yet to name. “I’m _fine_ ,” he snapped, looking down at his knees. His hands clenched hard around the seatbelt. “I can take care of myself.”

The car was very quiet until they got into the city. 

* * *

The plan had been to keep an eye on him. Tom and Maddie had decided while they’d looked for Tom’s gym bag in the trunk. 

_We have to,_ said Tom. _You know… since it’s my fault, sort of_.

 _Of course,_ she replied too quickly. _We have to watch him. Of course._

And they did watch him. 

Until they were falling through a portal 120 feet from the ground and a man with a moustache is shooting at the thirteen year old. Maddie screams and reached out. Tom jumps off the hay, trying to get back through. 

The portal closed. 

“Shit!” Tom dropped to the ground. “We’ve gotta- we’ve gotta find him!”

Maddie was up off the ground just as quick, grabbing him by the hand. “Then we’ll find him. 

* * *

Tom and Maddie had never wanted kids, because of the what ifs. 

What if they did something wrong. 

What if they couldn’t handle it. 

What if their child got hurt. 

It was safer, they decided, to never take the risk. 

This was all they needed, and there wasn’t much risk in that.

And then a hedgehog was lying across the street, and Tom felt a piece of him snap away.

They watched him lose. 

They watched him fall. 

Maddie had held Tom’s hand, both of them barely breathing until Sonic had actually gotten up off the ground. Tom wiped his eyes. Maddie laughed, her face glittering wet in the blue light. 

So they watch. 

They watch. 

.

.

.

They watch him win. 

There were risks. But there was joy.

So. Much. Joy. 

* * *

The main street of Green Hills is something of a ruined landscape now, but the town doesn’t care much. Everyone is just relieved that it’s over. A few people mill around assessing damage, but most folks just turn to go and find their cars. 

Maddie and Tom had no such luxury. The truck they’d had from before was long destroyed, so they’d need to walk home, which was fine. The night was clear and cool. Looking around, Sonic had already disappeared. Maddie’s fingers laced through her husbands, walking beneath the streetlights on the dusty sidewalk. “I hope he’s safe,” Tom says absently, quietly. 

A question (a realization) lights up in his head. He turns to say it, but Maddie interrupts him, pointing towards the treeline ahead. “Look!”

Sonic was walking along at their speed, limping through dirt and crushed leaves towards the brushes that stood at attention in front of the towering oaks. 

“Hey!” 

“Sonic- _hey_!”

He turned around at his name, smiling when he saw who it was. “Oh hey! Donut Lord! Pretzel Lady! Come to wish the hero goodbye-”

“What happened to your leg!”

His smug interlude was cut short by Maddie dropping to her knees, knimble fingers poking and prodding at the scrapes and bruises. “Stay still a second. Can you bend it? Aw, honey. Here. Let me just-”

“Maddie- _Maddie,_ I’ll be fine! A few days resting-”

“In your cave? Out _there_?” Tom looked through into the darkness. The darkness watched him back. “Uh uh. No way.”

“I’m _fine_ , Donut Lord.” The telltale defensiveness was rising back up, the kids eyes flashing with something scared and raw. “I’m okay. I swear.”

“Tom’s right.” Maddie stood, brushing off her jeans. “You’re coming back with us.”

“But-”

“No,” said Tom, grabbing his smaller hand in his own. “No arguments. Come on.”

The blue hedgehog was smeared with soot and dirt and his eyes were beginning to shutter. 

“… You sure?”

“Totally,”said Maddie. “Come on. We have a spare room and sheets and everything. You can take a break there.” She reached down, wiping soot from his face. “”And you need a bath.” 

“...M’kay.”

They unlocked the door. The house was a disaster, awash with bullet holes and toppled furniture, but Tom waved it off. There was always tomorrow. 

Maddie dragged Sonic upstairs and got the shower started. “Turn it like that when you’re done,” she said, sitting on the side of the tub. “Wash off good, alright hon?” She reached out, running her fingers through the fur on the top of his head. “We’ll be downstairs.”

Sonic looked away, nodding. “K…” he said, quietly. “... Thanks.”

They set up the spare room with blankets and sheets. Tom dug through his closet and found a few comics, laying them on the side table. Maddie grabbed a glass, filling it to the brim with cold water, putting it beside that on a coaster.

When Sonic came out of the bathroom, still damp from the shower, he surveyed it all with a terrible hungriness. Maddie ran her hand through his quills and he pushed against the touch. She could feel him trembling beneath. When he crawled into the bed, he sank into the mattress like he’d never felt one. Clung to the sheets around him like he wanted them to fuse to his skin. His head buried against the pillow. 

“Night, bud,” said Tom, turning off the lights. “We’re upstairs if you need anything.”

“Right,” said Sonic. “Night.” 

He was also there in the morning when Maddie came downstairs and saw him trying to sneak out the door. He paused with his hand on the doorknob “Sorry…” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to-”

“I was up.” She waved him to the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s make pancakes. Did you sleep okay?” 

“Yeah. But I should…” he took a step towards the door, “I should get back to my cave-”

“You can’t go yet,” she said. “Not until you’ve helped me make pancakes.” 

Tom would be downstairs thirty minutes later to see his wife’s face smeared with flour and a blue hedgehog sitting at the kitchen island, laughing and grinning and belonging so wholly that it made Tom’s chest squeeze. 

“Hey, Donut Lord! What are you lookin’ at?” 

The feeling didn’t fade, but he stuffed it down fast, swallowing it back. “Nothing. Hoping you saved a few for me.”

Sonic beamed. “I shaped yours like a donut!” 

* * *

_There were a million reasons they didn’t want kids, and Maddie and Tom had come up with every single one of them._

_Leaving out the one that mattered most._

_“I wouldn’t know what to do,” Maddie would say._

_“I’d never know how to be a dad,” Tom would agree._

_(I’m afraid) went unspoken between them._

_(I’m afraid)_

_(I’m afraid)_

"This is all we need"

_(I’m afraid.)_

_._

_._

_._

Turns out, though, some of the best things are scary. Because sometimes that thing that scares you most pushes you off a building and collapses on Main Street and then ends up asleep a few doors away. 

They’re beginning to realize that more and more whenever they pass by the guest room at night and hear the soft breathing of another, smaller person in the house.

It terrifies them. 

They love that. 

* * *

Sonic tried to leave. 

He really did his best. 

“I should get back to the cave,” he reasoned, sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, watching Maddie pass Tom dried dishes to put away. “I’ve got my own place, you know. Rent controlled and everything.” 

“Mmhm.” Maddie passed Tom a dish. “Not today.” 

The next day, he tries again. "I don't want to eat you out of house and home," he says, trying his best to make it sound like he's being reasonable. 

Tom, who was in the midst of a good chapter of a Tom Clancy novel, turned the page slowly without looking up. Maddie was beside him on the couch, her feet in his lap, reading a murder mystery. Sonic was on the floor with a cup of lemonade and a comic book. "I should go," he said again, in case they didn't hear. 

Tom just turned the page again. "Not right now," he said. "Finish your lemonade."

And by the time he did that (and got a second one filled up) they'd dropped the conversation. 

The third day he'd tried again, a little more desperately. It was after he'd nearly broken a vase that had tipped off a table when he'd run in from a walk with Maddie and Ozzie. Tom had been close enough to catch it, but it was enough of a catalyst for Sonic to say, "see! I just destroy stuff! I should go before I do any more damage!"

"Always hated this vase," Tom said, and ruffled his fur as he passed. 

The last attempt was after dinner that night. 

"I should go." 

“We have a spare bed. You can stay a few more nights.” 

Sonic stared at his hands, at the counter, at them. “Are you… are you _sure_ …?” 

There was an uncertainty in his voice. A lifetime of something far away, reached for, never caught.

_You’ll regret it._

_You feel bad for me._

_Everyone leaves me behind._

_Please, please, please just make this easy and let me leave now._

Maddie swallowed hard. Turning on the heel, she leaned against the kitchen island to face Sonic. “Stay,” she said. “We would love for you to stay.” 

* * *

_They’d never wanted kids because they were afraid of being parents._

_They’d never stopped to realize that there were some children out there who felt the same way._

_Separate, living in a cave, a hedgehog had gotten very good at excuses, too._

_“They wouldn't know what to do with an alien,” he’d say._

_“You’re a handful, anyway. You’re annoying and you’re clingy and you run away from everything.”_

_It was better to stay like he was, he reasoned._

_Which was fine._

_He’d have probably made a terrible kid, anyway. And there were risks in trying that he wasn’t sure he could take._

_His chest was already filled with far too many broken pieces. What was the use of adding more?_

_Abandonment is a heavy thing, after all, and after a while, if it gets too loud, it can convince you-_

_“They’d just throw you away,” Sonic would say, after watching every movie night from outside the window of the two people who were happy together and alone. “And so are you.”_

_-that it’s all you need._

* * *

They love having him around. He’s there for a week, sleeping in the spare room with new comics and blankets and a mug that Tom brought him with the New York Yankees on the side. Breakfasters are at the table. Lunches are sometimes outside on the porch depending on the weather. Maddie could have cried when Tom found a baseball and Sonic ran circles on the lawn, chasing after each pitch. Tom narrated a home run and Sonic had circled their house cheering for ten minutes before they’d gotten him to settle down enough for ice cream on the front steps. 

They have a movie night. Sonic was going to sit on the floor, but Maddie grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him up between them. Tom swung his arm around them both, leaning back. 

“What do you want to watch?” Tom flickered through Netflix. 

“Speed?”

“You are _so_ not old enough for Speed.”

“I used to watch it from the window,” Sonic says, not realizing the words that came out of his mouth. Tom choked on popcorn and Maddie dug her fingernails into the couch. Sonic didn’t realize that, either, instead pointing towards the screen and saying, “oh! What about that one!” 

Sonic fell asleep between them. They shut off the movie early. Maddie arranged the covers on his temporary bed, and Tom lifted him off the couch. He blinked at the movement, head lolling. “Wher’…”

“You fell asleep,” whispered Tom. “It’s bedtime anyway.”

“Missed th’movie…?”

“We can watch it tomorrow. Go back to sleep”

“Mmm,” he said. “K…” Before drifting off again, head dropping forward onto Tom’s shoulder. 

He walks up the stairs behind Maddie, Sonic in his arms, snoring quietly. She opened the door, turning around to pull off his sneakers and lay them by the bed. 

Tom stays there a moment too long, holding the kid. Maddie watches from where she was pulling the covers back, smoothing the pillow case out. Watches him wrap his arms tightly around the child. Watches Sonic’s chest rise and fall slowly. 

“Tom…”

“Just…” The sheriff winds his arms even tighter, dipping his head to press his nose into the fluff above Sonic’s eyes, closing his own, “one more second?”

She gives that to him. 

* * *

Maddie and Tom couldn’t sleep. They stayed awake, staring at the ceiling in their room, listening to the house settle and sigh around them. Ozzie was at their feet, curled up and breathing evenly. The moon slatted through the little window, drifting off into silken cutouts on the hardwood. 

Under the covers, Tom reached out and grabbed Maddie’s hand. “So,” he said.

“So,” she said back. 

He was quiet a long moment after. Down the stairs, they could hear Sonic turn in his sleep, then fall still again. The house was less empty. It felt different, too. Fuller. Happier. The residual echoes of his laugh had seeped into the wall like fresh paint. Tom squeezed her hand. “I don’t think I’d want to have a baby. But I want a kid.” The confession felt new. Raw. It left his chest feeling lighter. The slats of moonlight on the wall blurred, and his eyes felt hot. “I want _that_ kid.”

Beside him, Maddie sniffled. Her warm shape moved closer. “I do, too.”

“You do?”

He felt her nod against his shoulder. “I think he’s already ours.” She pressed her face to his skin. It was wet, but he could still feel the outlines of a smile. “He’s ours, Tom.” 

_They’d never wanted kids_ , they’d used to say. 

But maybe they had. 

Tom turns to Maddie. In the dim light of the moon through the shutters, she could see the new light in his eyes spark when he told her that maybe they _had_ wanted kids, except not in the usual way. Maybe they’d just been cycling through excuses while they’d been waiting to meet theirs. 

Maybe they’d all been wandering a path towards one another. 

“Mads,” he choked. “I think we _found_ him.” 

She’d wound her arms around him and didn’t let go. 

* * *

They ask him at the table over dinner. They’d planned it all out, rehearsing it on walks with Ozzie and at night in their bedroom, meticulously going over each and every word 

When it comes to the big moment, they forget almost all of it, and instead Tom ends up blurting it out while Sonic is stabbing a potato with his fork. 

“How would you feel about staying long term?”

The fork clatters to the table. 

Sonic’s hand is frozen, gripping at nothing. 

"It's just..." Tom said, trying to remember what he and Maddie had written on the back of scrap paper in their bedroom. "We love having you here. Really, really love having you here. Maddie and I. We're realizing more and more-"

"We want to give you a _home_. A real home. Where you can stay," she quickly adds. "We want you to stay here. With us. And we were hoping that maybe you'd want that, too."

The more she'd talks, the farther and farther Sonic slips down in his chair. 

“Sonic?” Maddie frowns reaches for him, but he pulls away. 

“I- can I... can I think about it?”

“Yeah, bud,” said Tom, brows turned down. “Course. I know it’s a big decision. But you should know that we and Maddie- we lo-”

“Can I be excused,” Sonic snaps, before Tom could finish. 

Tom and Maddie looked at one another. 

Nodded. 

“Sure, hon,” said Maddie. “Of course.” 

Before he could speed up the stairs, away from the table, Maddie reached across and grabbed his hand. “You need to know- if you need anything, we’re here. And we want you here. But if you need anything…”

He pulled away quick. “Okay,” he said. 

And he was gone; a blue streak and a crack of lightning, and they were left alone. 

* * *

Sonic had always wanted parents. 

He’d always wanted people to hold him and tell him that the world was big, but they were bigger. 

He’d always wanted someone to tell him to stop running. To rest. To stay. He didn’t _have_ to hide because they’d protect him. 

But…

But he wasn’t _made_ to be someone’s child. 

And that was just how it was supposed to be. 

Sonic was _meant_ to be left behind. 

He was meant to be tossed to the side with pitying smiles or told, gently, that he was just _a little too much_. 

He was meant to be in a cave, below the bleachers, at the window. 

He was meant to be alone. 

And this... this was just unfair. Cruel. The worst joke the universe had ever set up, and he was the punchline. Downstairs, he could hear the sink turning on and the quiet murmuring of the two adults. No doubt realizing that he was too much. Too loud, too quick, too unfocused, too flighty.

Too much.

Too _Sonic._

Sitting the dark of the spare room that smelled like Tom and Maddie, looking between the family pictures on the dresser and the collection of comics on the dresser, he thinks about how little he fits. Little pieces of him between all of their things. 

They want him to see _inclusion_. 

He just sees a wrench in the wheel. 

Eventually they will, he knows. There's only so long before they realize it. 

Sonic pulled his knees closer, laying his forehead against them. 

He wasn’t made to be someone’s kid. 

He was all he’d ever needed. 

And it was better for everyone if it stayed that way. Why tempt the future when you could end it before it starts. 

Sonic sniffles, wipes his eyes, and slides off the bed. He opens the door and stares at the closed door of their room and the stairwell where he could still hear their voices drifting. He closes his eyes.

Breathes. 

The crackle of electricity and an empty bed is all he leaves behind.

* * *

They don’t hear him leave. But in the morning, Tom comes down expecting to see pancakes and bright, green eyes. He expects to see a smile. Hear that same laugh until it filled the house with the same warmth he’d felt for the past few days. 

Instead, his wife is at the kitchen counter, a cup of coffee gone cold in front of her. Her face was in her hands, and when she heard him come down she lifted it. Her eyes were red. 

And he knew. 

* * *

Once, a long time ago, they hadn't wanted children. They hadn't been made for it, they'd told themselves. It was easier to avoid it all and settle in their lovely, mutual emptiness.

When they return to the emptiness, it's drowning. 

Maddie and Tom had always been alone, and that had always been enough. And then, just like that, enough became cold, and quiet, and alone. They sit together at the kitchen table across from one another and stare at an empty seat. They go to bed without the sound of soft snoring down the hall. The laughter he'd left behind feels like a scar. 

“Tom,” chokes Maddie one night, and the words fall into the silence and are consumed. “Tom…”

“I know.”

“This _isn’t_ _enough_ …”

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes to push back the burn, but it spills over anyway. “Yeah,” he says back, his own voice wavering. “Yeah. I know.” 

They’d once been afraid have a child, because the idea of losing them was painful and frightening. 

The reality, they find, is incomparable.

.

.

.

And it isn't enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few stories sitting here that were inspired by the art of solar-socks, thebigpalooka, and smallpwbbles. Honestly, if it weren't for the artists of this fandom, I'd write nothing. 
> 
> Don't worry; my other stories are getting updated. This one just struck first.
> 
> PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CHECK OUT THE PICTURES BY THE INCREDIBLE SMALLPWBBLES! https://smallpwbbles.tumblr.com/post/625529191193001984/all-we-need-chapter-1-humanitieshandbag
> 
> They will destroy you. This is your warning.


End file.
